217 



A' similar^ dragon's egg was used by a Buddhist priest in 

 Moriyama, Omi province, in 1774, for grinding his tea, till the 

 dragon was born and ascended, leaving a round hole in the 

 middle of the stone ', 



In another case such an egg was recognized before by a great 

 scholar, thoroughly versed in Chinese literature, the famous Ito 

 JiNSAi ^, who warned a Court-noble, telling him that a magnifi- 

 cent stone," square and five-coloured, in the nobleman's possession 

 ■was a dragon's egg, and that he had better throw it away in 

 some lonely spot. The man followed the scholar's advice, and 

 built a little Shinto shrine in the open field outside the capital, 

 in which he placed : the stone. A few years afterwards the shrine 

 was smashed by the dragon which ascended to heaven. This 

 stone was a so-called ryushd-seki, ^| ^ ^ , or " Dragon produ- 

 cing stone" ^ 



The name of "dragon-horse-stone" {ryu-me-seki, f| j|| ^) was 

 given to another remarkable stone, white as crystal and as big 

 as the palm of the hand, which was lying on the desk of a 

 samurai in Hizen province. In its centre a moving creature w^s 

 visible, and the stone moved by itself from one side of the desk 

 to the other. One day the man placed a tea cup filled with water 

 on the desk, and when he came back the cup was empty. The 

 next day he made the same experiment with a big bowl, and 

 while he was talking with some friends in the next room, they 

 heard a noise as of wind and waves. At once they went to look 

 what the matter was, and discovered a lizard {tokage, ^ ^ -y* , 

 litt. "little stone-dragon") running from the bowl to the stone, 

 which it entered*. 



Two "snake-producing stones" {sho-ja-seki, ^'^^)^ were 

 found in a hole at Kyoto in 1762, and in 1780 a "golden snake 

 stone" (^t'fe^) was picked up in the mountains by a child. 

 Water was constantly flowing out of it, till it was cooked and 

 the dragon inside was killed. Then it was split and the dead 

 body ■ of a little gold-coloured snake was found in it ^. 



Although they were not dragon's eggs, we may mention here 

 two stones which were believed to be connected with dragons. 

 One of them was a big stone lying in a hollow excavated by a 

 waterfall near Kayao village, Tnukami district, Omi. province. 



1 Ibidem. 2 ^ i^ 't ^-j a kangakusha who lived iQiQ — 1705. 



3 Unkonshi kohen, Ch. II, p. 8. 4 Ibidem, Oh. II, p. 10. 



5 Ibidem, Ch. II, p. 12. 6 Ibidem, Ch. Ill, p. 7. :. 



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